The present invention relates to wireless communications in general and, in particular, to a satellite communications network employing frequency reuse techniques.
Consumer broadband satellite services are gaining traction in North America with the start up of star network services using Ka band satellites. While such first generation satellite systems may provide multi-gigabit per second (Gbps) per satellite overall capacity, the design of such systems inherently limits the number of customers that may be adequately served. Moreover, the fact that the capacity is split across numerous coverage areas further limits the bandwidth to each subscriber.
While existing designs have a number of capacity limitations, the demand for such broadband services continues to grow. The past few years have seen strong advances in communications and processing technology. This technology, in conjunction with selected innovative system and component design, may be harnessed to produce a novel satellite communications system to address this demand.
Communicating data in a multibeam satellite system utilizing frequency re-use in a cellular service footprint is a known technique to attempt to address frequency and spatial constraints. Service beams including uplink service beams and downlink service beams between a satellite and a plurality of subscriber terminals may occupy frequency and polarization slots and each serve a special cell or service beam coverage area. The plurality of the uplink service beams is transmitted to the satellite by re-using at least one common uplink frequency channel, and a plurality of the downlink service beams are transmitted from the satellite by re-using at least one common downlink frequency channel. The method further comprises establishing at least one feeder beam comprising an uplink feeder beam and a downlink feeder beam between the satellite and a gateway terminal, the at least one feeder beam being associated with a feeder beam coverage area separated from the plurality of service beam coverage areas, the uplink feeder beam being received at the satellite to form a plurality of the downlink service beams, a plurality of the uplink service beams being received at the satellite to form the downlink feeder beam. The uplink feeder beam is transmitted to the satellite by re-using the at least one common uplink frequency channel, and the downlink feeder beam is transmitted from the satellite by re-using the at least one common downlink frequency channel.
Notwithstanding, certain satellite configurations result in inefficiencies in allocation of bandwidth and resources, which means that satellites of known designs and configuration carry unnecessary and unused facilities resulting in carriage of precious extra weight impacting the entire design and specifications of the satellite and launch vehicle. It is therefore desirable to not only identify what are unnecessary equipment requirements but also to provide a satellite configuration that better optimizes a satellite size, weight and link budget.